Category Archives: Integrative Medicine

This chart is a list of the most common health insurance plans we accept. This list is subject to change. Please check your individual plan to confirm their participation and the coverage allowed.

Due to the different physician groups and hospitals within the Wake Forest Baptist system, physician services and hospital services are billed separately. Please remember that health insurance coverage varies, so some services may not be covered.

If you dont see your plan or you have questions, please call our Customer Service Center at 877-938-7497. We will do our best to work with you and your plan.

WFUHS - Wake Forest University Health Sciences (physician services)NCBH - North Carolina Baptist HospitalDavie - Davie Medical CenterLMC - Lexington Medical CenterCHC - Cornerstone HealthcareWilkes - Wilkes Regional Medical CenterN/A - Not applicable to services provided at facilityand/pr CHCNC - Not contracted, very low to no volume for facility and/or CHC

CIGNA BEHAVIORAL HEALTH (limited providers)

Read more:
Integrative Medicine - Highland Oaks | Wake Forest Baptist ...

What is integrative medicine?

Integrative medicine is a patient-centered approach that addresses the biological, psychological, social and spiritual aspects of health and illness. It is a very personalized approach that takes into consideration your unique conditions, needs, and circumstances. Integrative medicine utilizes multiple evidenced based disciplines to help prevent and heal illness and disease and help patients move toward optimal health.

It is based on a partnership between provider and patient, emphasizes respect for the human capacity for healing and utilizes more natural, less invasive therapies when appropriate.

Integrative medicine can be effective at treating chronic disease comprehensively and works with you to prevent disease development. By deeply examining your unique qualities, family history, lifestyle, social structure, and medical status, an individualized care plan is developed. Integrative medicine providers partner with you as well as your primary care provider (PCP) to help provide effective solutions.

Integrative medicine combines all forms of medicine beyond the traditional Western modelso a treatment plan may include diet modifications, nutritional or herbal supplements or recommendations for mind-body practices like meditation or hypnosis. Referral to other evidence-based modalities is utilized when needed, such as acupuncture or bodywork.

Integrative medicine may be a good fit for those who are interested in taking a deeper look at the cause of their diseases/symptoms and for those who are willing to make some changes to their lifestyle to achieve optimal health or to reduce their medications.

Integrative Medicine is a specialty service, and like most other specialties, you will still need a PCP. In some cases, it may be possible for your Integrative Medicine specialist to act as both.

Cheryl Beighle, MD, provides pediatric care at Marysville, Shoreline, and integrative cancer care for adults at Providence Regional Cancer Partnership Everett. To schedule an appointment, call 360-651-7492 for Marysville, 206-401-3200 for Shoreline and 425-297-5560 for the Cancer Partnership.

Originally posted here:
Integrative Medicine | The Everett Clinic

Integrative Medicine is a novel approach to health care that engages both patient and practitioner in a therapeutic partnership dedicated to optimizing the patients health and healing. Its aim is to integrate modern technology with traditional values in treating the patient as a whole, recognizing that the subtle interactions of mind, body, spirit and community have a direct impact on vitality and well-being.1

Functional medicine is a subset of integrative medicine that is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. By shifting the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach, functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. Functional medicine practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.

Functional medicine involves understanding the origins, prevention, and treatment of complex, chronic disease. Hallmarks of a functional medicine approach include:

1 http://www.dukeintegrativemedicine.org/about-us/what-is-integrative-medicineAll copy defining functional medicine is from the IFM. 2008 The Institute for Functional Medicine http://www.functionalmedicine.org.Also as seen on Dr. Mark Hymans Website, chairman of the IFM.

Original post:
Integrative Medicine | Knight Integrative Medicine

Spa treatments and daily stress relief may come to mind when you think of massage, meditation and other integrative therapies. But these services are also proven, reliable ways to promote healing and well-being. Often described as alternative or complementary, these healthcare approaches were developed outside of conventional, mainstream Western medicine.

Our integrative medicine services combine the best of both approaches to your health in a coordinated way. Our professionals apply their medical knowledge when administering these long-practiced therapies and treatments to prevent disease and maintain health. If you are ill or require surgery, integrative medicine may be used to support conventional medical treatments.

Our trained, compassionate professionals use integrative therapies to help you with a wide range of conditions and needs, including:

We offer a range of services to support your health, from acupuncture and cupping to nutritional counseling and yoga.

Learn more about our integrative services and therapies.

In some ways, going to one of our integrative therapists is like going to your doctor. Your therapist will spend your first appointment getting to know you to help determine the best course of therapy for your health needs. Your first appointment will be 15 30 minutes longer than follow-up appointments so that you and your therapist can discuss every aspect of your current health and wellness. The two of you will discuss recommended therapies that fit your needs, and from there, youll work together on a plan of treatment. Treatment and services may include a combination of individual care, therapies and education, and youll have regular consultations to adjust the plan as needed.

Go here to see the original:
Integrative Medicine | SCL Health

Form of non-scientific healing

a) Misinterpreted natural course the individual gets better without treatment.b) Placebo effect or false treatment effect an individual receives "alternative therapy" and is convinced it will help. The conviction makes them more likely to get better.c) Nocebo effect an individual is convinced that standard treatment will not work, and that alternative treatment will work. This decreases the likelihood standard treatment will work, while the placebo effect of the "alternative" remains. d) No adverse effects Standard treatment is replaced with "alternative" treatment, getting rid of adverse effects, but also of improvement.e) Interference Standard treatment is "complemented" with something that interferes with its effect. This can both cause worse effect, but also decreased (or even increased) side effects, which may be interpreted as "helping".

Alternative medicine, fringe medicine, pseudomedicine or simply questionable medicine is promotion or use of practices which are unproven, disproven, impossible to prove, or excessively harmful in relation to their effect in the attempt to achieve the healing effects of medicine. It differs from experimental medicine in that the latter employs responsible investigation, and is discarded when shown ineffective. The scientific consensus is that alternative therapies either do not, or cannot, work. In some cases laws of nature are violated by their basic claims; in others the treatment is so much worse that its use is unethical. Alternative practices, products, and therapies range from those which are simply ineffective to those having known harmful and toxic effects.

Alternative therapies may be credited for perceived improvement through placebo effects, decreased use or effect of medical treatment (and therefore either decreased side effects; or nocebo effects towards standard treatment), or the natural course of the condition or disease. Alternative treatment is not the same as experimental treatment or traditional medicine, although both can be misused in ways that are alternative. Alternative or complementary medicine is dangerous because it may discourage people from getting the best possible treatment, and may lead to a false understanding of the body and of science.

Alternative medicine is used by a significant number of people, though its popularity is often overstated. Large amounts of funding go to testing alternative medicine, with more than US$2.5 billion spent by the United States government alone. Almost none show any effect beyond that of false treatment, and most studies showing any effect have been statistical flukes. Alternative medicine is a highly profitable industry, with a strong lobby. This fact is often overlooked by media or intentionally kept hidden, with alternative practice being portrayed positively when compared to "big pharma". The lobby has successfully pushed for alternative therapies to be subject to far less regulation than conventional medicine. Alternative therapies may even be allowed to promote use when there is demonstrably no effect, only a tradition of use. Regulation and licensing of alternative medicine and health care providers varies between and within countries. Despite laws making it illegal to market or promote alternative therapies for use in cancer treatment, many practitioners promote them. Alternative medicine is criticized for taking advantage of the weakest members of society.

Terminology has shifted over time, reflecting the preferred branding of practitioners. For example, the United States National Institutes of Health department studying alternative medicine, currently named National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, was established as the Office of Alternative Medicine and was renamed the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine before obtaining its current name. Therapies are often framed as "natural" or "holistic", in apparent opposition to conventional medicine which is "artificial" and "narrow in scope", statements which are intentionally misleading. When used together with functional medical treatment, alternative therapies do not "complement" (improve the effect of, or mitigate the side effects of) treatment. Significant drug interactions caused by alternative therapies may instead negatively impact functional treatment by making prescription drugs less effective, such as interference by herbal preparations with warfarin.

Alternative diagnoses and treatments are not part of medicine, or of science-based curricula in medical schools, nor are they used in any practice based on scientific knowledge or experience. Alternative therapies are often based on religious belief, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural energies, pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud, or lies. Alternative medicine is based on misleading statements, quackery, pseudoscience, antiscience, fraud, and poor scientific methodology. Promoting alternative medicine has been called dangerous and unethical. Testing alternative medicine that has no scientific basis has been called a waste of scarce research resources. Critics state that "there is really no such thing as alternative medicine, just medicine that works and medicine that doesn't", that the very idea of "alternative" treatments is paradoxical, as any treatment proven to work is by definition "medicine".

Alternative medicine is defined loosely as a set of products, practices, and theories that are believed or perceived by their users to have the healing effects of medicine,[n 1][n 2] but whose effectiveness has not been clearly established using scientific methods,[n 1][n 3][4][5][6][7] or whose theory and practice is not part of biomedicine,[n 2][n 4][n 5][n 6] or whose theories or practices are directly contradicted by scientific evidence or scientific principles used in biomedicine.[4][5][11] "Biomedicine" or "medicine" is that part of medical science that applies principles of biology, physiology, molecular biology, biophysics, and other natural sciences to clinical practice, using scientific methods to establish the effectiveness of that practice. Unlike medicine,[n 4] an alternative product or practice does not originate from using scientific methods, but may instead be based on hearsay, religion, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural energies, pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud, or other unscientific sources.[n 3][1][4][5]

In General Guidelines for Methodologies on Research and Evaluation of Traditional Medicine, published in 2000 by the World Health Organization (WHO), complementary and alternative medicine were defined as a broad set of health care practices that are not part of that country's own tradition and are not integrated into the dominant health care system.[12]

The expression also refers to a diverse range of related and unrelated products, practices, and theories ranging from biologically plausible practices and products and practices with some evidence, to practices and theories that are directly contradicted by basic science or clear evidence, and products that have been conclusively proven to be ineffective or even toxic and harmful.[n 2][14][15]

The terms alternative medicine, complementary medicine, integrative medicine, holistic medicine, natural medicine, unorthodox medicine, fringe medicine, unconventional medicine, and new age medicine are used interchangeably as having the same meaning and are almost synonymous in most contexts.[16][17][18][19]

The meaning of the term "alternative" in the expression "alternative medicine", is not that it is an effective alternative to medical science, although some alternative medicine promoters may use the loose terminology to give the appearance of effectiveness.[4][20] Loose terminology may also be used to suggest meaning that a dichotomy exists when it does not, e.g., the use of the expressions "western medicine" and "eastern medicine" to suggest that the difference is a cultural difference between the Asiatic east and the European west, rather than that the difference is between evidence-based medicine and treatments that do not work.[4]

Complementary medicine (CM) or integrative medicine (IM) is when alternative medicine is used together with functional medical treatment, in a belief that it improves the effect of treatments.[n 7][1][22][23][24] However, significant drug interactions caused by alternative therapies may instead negatively influence treatment, making treatments less effective, notably cancer therapy.[25][26] Both terms refer to use of alternative medical treatments alongside conventional medicine,[27][28][29] an example of which is use of acupuncture (sticking needles in the body to influence the flow of a supernatural energy), along with using science-based medicine, in the belief that the acupuncture increases the effectiveness or "complements" the science-based medicine.[29]

CAM is an abbreviation of the phrase complementary and alternative medicine.[30][31] It has also been called sCAM or SCAM with the addition of "so-called" or "supplements".[32][33]

Allopathic medicine or allopathy is an expression commonly used by homeopaths and proponents of other forms of alternative medicine to refer to medicine. It was used to describe the traditional European practice of heroic medicine,[34] but later continued to be used to describe anything that was not homeopathy.[34]

Allopathy refers to the use of pharmacologically active agents or medical interventions to treat or suppress symptoms or pathophysiological processes of diseases or conditions.[35] The German version of the word, allopathisch, was coined in 1810 by the creator of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann (17551843).[36] The word was coined from allo- (different) and -pathic (relating to a disease or to a method of treatment).[37] In alternative medicine circles the expression "allopathic medicine" is still used to refer to "the broad category of medical practice that is sometimes called Western medicine, biomedicine, evidence-based medicine, or modern medicine" (see the article on scientific medicine).[38]

Use of the term remains common among homeopaths and has spread to other alternative medicine practices. The meaning implied by the label has never been accepted by conventional medicine and is considered pejorative.[39] More recently, some sources have used the term "allopathic", particularly American sources wishing to distinguish between Doctors of Medicine (MD) and Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) in the United States.[36][40] William Jarvis, an expert on alternative medicine and public health,[41] states that "although many modern therapies can be construed to conform to an allopathic rationale (e.g., using a laxative to relieve constipation), standard medicine has never paid allegiance to an allopathic principle" and that the label "allopath" was from the start "considered highly derisive by regular medicine".[42]

Many conventional medical treatments do not fit the nominal definition of allopathy, as they seek to prevent illness, or remove its cause.[43][44]

CAM is an abbreviation of complementary and alternative medicine.[30][31] It has also been called sCAM or SCAM with the addition of "so-called" or "supplements".[32][33] The words balance and holism are often used, claiming to take into account a "whole" person, in contrast to the supposed reductionism of medicine. Due to its many names the field has been criticized for intense rebranding of what are essentially the same practices: as soon as one name is declared synonymous with quackery, a new name is chosen.[16]

Traditional medicine refers to the pre-scientific practices of a certain culture, contrary to what is typically practiced in other cultures where medical science dominates.

"Eastern medicine" typically refers to the traditional medicines of Asia where conventional bio-medicine penetrated much later.

The words balance and holism are often used alongside complementary or integrative medicine, claiming to take into account a "whole" person, in contrast to the supposed reductionism of medicine. Due to its many names the field has been criticized for intense rebranding of what are essentially the same practices.[16]

Prominent members of the science[45][46] and biomedical science community[3] say that it is not meaningful to define an alternative medicine that is separate from a conventional medicine, that the expressions "conventional medicine", "alternative medicine", "complementary medicine", "integrative medicine", and "holistic medicine" do not refer to any medicine at all.[45][3][46][47]

Others in both the biomedical and CAM communities say that CAM cannot be precisely defined because of the diversity of theories and practices it includes, and because the boundaries between CAM and biomedicine overlap, are porous, and change. The expression "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) resists easy definition because the health systems and practices it refers to are diffuse, and its boundaries poorly defined.[14][n 8] Healthcare practices categorized as alternative may differ in their historical origin, theoretical basis, diagnostic technique, therapeutic practice and in their relationship to the medical mainstream. Some alternative therapies, including traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Ayurveda, have antique origins in East or South Asia and are entirely alternative medical systems;[52] others, such as homeopathy and chiropractic, have origins in Europe or the United States and emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some, such as osteopathy and chiropractic, employ manipulative physical methods of treatment; others, such as meditation and prayer, are based on mind-body interventions. Treatments considered alternative in one location may be considered conventional in another.[55] Thus, chiropractic is not considered alternative in Denmark and likewise osteopathic medicine is no longer thought of as an alternative therapy in the United States.[55]

Critics say the expression is deceptive because it implies there is an effective alternative to science-based medicine, and that complementary is deceptive because it implies that the treatment increases the effectiveness of (complements) science-based medicine, while alternative medicines that have been tested nearly always have no measurable positive effect compared to a placebo.[4][56][57][58]

One common feature of all definitions of alternative medicine is its designation as "other than" conventional medicine. For example, the widely referenced descriptive definition of complementary and alternative medicine devised by the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), states that it is "a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine".[61] For conventional medical practitioners, it does not necessarily follow that either it or its practitioners would no longer be considered alternative.[n 9]

Some definitions seek to specify alternative medicine in terms of its social and political marginality to mainstream healthcare.[64] This can refer to the lack of support that alternative therapies receive from the medical establishment and related bodies regarding access to research funding, sympathetic coverage in the medical press, or inclusion in the standard medical curriculum.[64] In 1993, the British Medical Association (BMA), one among many professional organizations who have attempted to define alternative medicine, stated that it[n 10] referred to "...those forms of treatment which are not widely used by the conventional healthcare professions, and the skills of which are not taught as part of the undergraduate curriculum of conventional medical and paramedical healthcare courses".[65] In a US context, an influential definition coined in 1993 by the Harvard-based physician,[66] David M. Eisenberg,[67] characterized alternative medicine "as interventions neither taught widely in medical schools nor generally available in US hospitals".[68] These descriptive definitions are inadequate in the present-day when some conventional doctors offer alternative medical treatments and CAM introductory courses or modules can be offered as part of standard undergraduate medical training;[69] alternative medicine is taught in more than 50 per cent of US medical schools and increasingly US health insurers are willing to provide reimbursement for CAM therapies. In 1999, 7.7% of US hospitals reported using some form of CAM therapy; this proportion had risen to 37.7% by 2008.[71]

An expert panel at a conference hosted in 1995 by the US Office for Alternative Medicine (OAM),[72][n 11] devised a theoretical definition[72] of alternative medicine as "a broad domain of healing resources... other than those intrinsic to the politically dominant health system of a particular society or culture in a given historical period".[74] This definition has been widely adopted by CAM researchers,[72] cited by official government bodies such as the UK Department of Health,[75] attributed as the definition used by the Cochrane Collaboration,[76] and, with some modification,[dubious discuss] was preferred in the 2005 consensus report of the US Institute of Medicine, Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the United States.[n 2]

The 1995 OAM conference definition, an expansion of Eisenberg's 1993 formulation, is silent regarding questions of the medical effectiveness of alternative therapies.[77] Its proponents hold that it thus avoids relativism about differing forms of medical knowledge and, while it is an essentially political definition, this should not imply that the dominance of mainstream biomedicine is solely due to political forces.[77] According to this definition, alternative and mainstream medicine can only be differentiated with reference to what is "intrinsic to the politically dominant health system of a particular society of culture".[78] However, there is neither a reliable method to distinguish between cultures and subcultures, nor to attribute them as dominant or subordinate, nor any accepted criteria to determine the dominance of a cultural entity.[78] If the culture of a politically dominant healthcare system is held to be equivalent to the perspectives of those charged with the medical management of leading healthcare institutions and programs, the definition fails to recognize the potential for division either within such an elite or between a healthcare elite and the wider population.[78]

Normative definitions distinguish alternative medicine from the biomedical mainstream in its provision of therapies that are unproven, unvalidated, or ineffective and support of theories with no recognized scientific basis. These definitions characterize practices as constituting alternative medicine when, used independently or in place of evidence-based medicine, they are put forward as having the healing effects of medicine, but are not based on evidence gathered with the scientific method.[1][3][27][28][61][80] Exemplifying this perspective, a 1998 editorial co-authored by Marcia Angell, a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, argued that:

It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative medicine a free ride. There cannot be two kinds of medicine conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work. Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset. If it is found to be reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted. But assertions, speculation, and testimonials do not substitute for evidence. Alternative treatments should be subjected to scientific testing no less rigorous than that required for conventional treatments.[3]

This line of division has been subject to criticism, however, as not all forms of standard medical practice have adequately demonstrated evidence of benefit,[n 4][81] and it is also unlikely in most instances that conventional therapies, if proven to be ineffective, would ever be classified as CAM.[72]

Similarly, the public information website maintained by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of the Commonwealth of Australia uses the acronym "CAM" for a wide range of health care practices, therapies, procedures and devices not within the domain of conventional medicine. In the Australian context this is stated to include acupuncture; aromatherapy; chiropractic; homeopathy; massage; meditation and relaxation therapies; naturopathy; osteopathy; reflexology, traditional Chinese medicine; and the use of vitamin supplements.[83]

The Danish National Board of Health's "Council for Alternative Medicine" (Sundhedsstyrelsens Rd for Alternativ Behandling (SRAB)), an independent institution under the National Board of Health (Danish: Sundhedsstyrelsen), uses the term "alternative medicine" for:

Proponents of an evidence-base for medicine[n 12][86][87][88][89] such as the Cochrane Collaboration (founded in 1993 and from 2011 providing input for WHO resolutions) take a position that all systematic reviews of treatments, whether "mainstream" or "alternative", ought to be held to the current standards of scientific method.[90] In a study titled Development and classification of an operational definition of complementary and alternative medicine for the Cochrane Collaboration (2011) it was proposed that indicators that a therapy is accepted include government licensing of practitioners, coverage by health insurance, statements of approval by government agencies, and recommendation as part of a practice guideline; and that if something is currently a standard, accepted therapy, then it is not likely to be widely considered as CAM.[72]

Alternative medicine consists of a wide range of health care practices, products, and therapies. The shared feature is a claim to heal that is not based on the scientific method. Alternative medicine practices are diverse in their foundations and methodologies.[61] Alternative medicine practices may be classified by their cultural origins or by the types of beliefs upon which they are based.[1][4][11][61] Methods may incorporate or be based on traditional medicinal practices of a particular culture, folk knowledge, superstition, spiritual beliefs, belief in supernatural energies (antiscience), pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud, new or different concepts of health and disease, and any bases other than being proven by scientific methods.[1][4][5][11] Different cultures may have their own unique traditional or belief based practices developed recently or over thousands of years, and specific practices or entire systems of practices.

Alternative medicine, such as using naturopathy or homeopathy in place of conventional medicine, is based on belief systems not grounded in science.[61]

Alternative medical systems may be based on traditional medicine practices, such as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Ayurveda in India, or practices of other cultures around the world.[61] Some useful applications of traditional medicines have been researched and accepted within ordinary medicine, however the underlying belief systems are seldom scientific and are not accepted.

Traditional medicine is considered alternative when it is used outside its home region; or when it is used together with or instead of known functional treatment; or when it can be reasonably expected that the patient or practitioner knows or should know that it will not work such as knowing that the practice is based on superstition.

Bases of belief may include belief in existence of supernatural energies undetected by the science of physics, as in biofields, or in belief in properties of the energies of physics that are inconsistent with the laws of physics, as in energy medicine.[61]

Substance based practices use substances found in nature such as herbs, foods, non-vitamin supplements and megavitamins, animal and fungal products, and minerals, including use of these products in traditional medical practices that may also incorporate other methods.[61][115][116] Examples include healing claims for nonvitamin supplements, fish oil, Omega-3 fatty acid, glucosamine, echinacea, flaxseed oil, and ginseng.[117] Herbal medicine, or phytotherapy, includes not just the use of plant products, but may also include the use of animal and mineral products.[115] It is among the most commercially successful branches of alternative medicine, and includes the tablets, powders and elixirs that are sold as "nutritional supplements".[115] Only a very small percentage of these have been shown to have any efficacy, and there is little regulation as to standards and safety of their contents.[115] This may include use of known toxic substances, such as use of the poison lead in traditional Chinese medicine.[117]

A US agency, National Center on Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), has created a classification system for branches of complementary and alternative medicine that divides them into five major groups. These groups have some overlap, and distinguish two types of energy medicine: veritable which involves scientifically observable energy (including magnet therapy, colorpuncture and light therapy) and putative, which invokes physically undetectable or unverifiable energy.[121] None of these energies have any evidence to support that they effect the body in any positive or health promoting way.[34]

The history of alternative medicine may refer to the history of a group of diverse medical practices that were collectively promoted as "alternative medicine" beginning in the 1970s, to the collection of individual histories of members of that group, or to the history of western medical practices that were labeled "irregular practices" by the western medical establishment.[4][122][123][124][125] It includes the histories of complementary medicine and of integrative medicine. Before the 1970s, western practitioners that were not part of the increasingly science-based medical establishment were referred to "irregular practitioners", and were dismissed by the medical establishment as unscientific and as practicing quackery.[122][123] Until the 1970s, irregular practice became increasingly marginalized as quackery and fraud, as western medicine increasingly incorporated scientific methods and discoveries, and had a corresponding increase in success of its treatments.[124] In the 1970s, irregular practices were grouped with traditional practices of nonwestern cultures and with other unproven or disproven practices that were not part of biomedicine, with the entire group collectively marketed and promoted under the single expression "alternative medicine".[4][122][123][124][126]

Use of alternative medicine in the west began to rise following the counterculture movement of the 1960s, as part of the rising new age movement of the 1970s.[4][127][128] This was due to misleading mass marketing of "alternative medicine" being an effective "alternative" to biomedicine, changing social attitudes about not using chemicals and challenging the establishment and authority of any kind, sensitivity to giving equal measure to beliefs and practices of other cultures (cultural relativism), and growing frustration and desperation by patients about limitations and side effects of science-based medicine.[4][123][124][125][126][128][129] At the same time, in 1975, the American Medical Association, which played the central role in fighting quackery in the United States, abolished its quackery committee and closed down its Department of Investigation.[122]:xxi[129] By the early to mid 1970s the expression "alternative medicine" came into widespread use, and the expression became mass marketed as a collection of "natural" and effective treatment "alternatives" to science-based biomedicine.[4][129][130][131] By 1983, mass marketing of "alternative medicine" was so pervasive that the British Medical Journal (BMJ) pointed to "an apparently endless stream of books, articles, and radio and television programmes urge on the public the virtues of (alternative medicine) treatments ranging from meditation to drilling a hole in the skull to let in more oxygen".[129]

Mainly as a result of reforms following the Flexner Report of 1910[132] medical education in established medical schools in the US has generally not included alternative medicine as a teaching topic.[n 14] Typically, their teaching is based on current practice and scientific knowledge about: anatomy, physiology, histology, embryology, neuroanatomy, pathology, pharmacology, microbiology and immunology.[134] Medical schools' teaching includes such topics as doctor-patient communication, ethics, the art of medicine,[135] and engaging in complex clinical reasoning (medical decision-making).[136] Writing in 2002, Snyderman and Weil remarked that by the early twentieth century the Flexner model had helped to create the 20th-century academic health center, in which education, research, and practice were inseparable. While this had much improved medical practice by defining with increasing certainty the pathophysiological basis of disease, a single-minded focus on the pathophysiological had diverted much of mainstream American medicine from clinical conditions that were not well understood in mechanistic terms, and were not effectively treated by conventional therapies.[137]

By 2001 some form of CAM training was being offered by at least 75 out of 125 medical schools in the US.[138] Exceptionally, the School of Medicine of the University of Maryland, Baltimore includes a research institute for integrative medicine (a member entity of the Cochrane Collaboration).[90][139] Medical schools are responsible for conferring medical degrees, but a physician typically may not legally practice medicine until licensed by the local government authority. Licensed physicians in the US who have attended one of the established medical schools there have usually graduated Doctor of Medicine (MD).[140] All states require that applicants for MD licensure be graduates of an approved medical school and complete the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE).[140]

There is a general scientific consensus that alternative therapies lack the requisite scientific validation, and their effectiveness is either unproved or disproved.[1][4][141][142] Many of the claims regarding the efficacy of alternative medicines are controversial, since research on them is frequently of low quality and methodologically flawed. Selective publication bias, marked differences in product quality and standardisation, and some companies making unsubstantiated claims call into question the claims of efficacy of isolated examples where there is evidence for alternative therapies.[144]

The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine points to confusions in the general population a person may attribute symptomatic relief to an otherwise-ineffective therapy just because they are taking something (the placebo effect); the natural recovery from or the cyclical nature of an illness (the regression fallacy) gets misattributed to an alternative medicine being taken; a person not diagnosed with science-based medicine may never originally have had a true illness diagnosed as an alternative disease category.[145]

Edzard Ernst characterized the evidence for many alternative techniques as weak, nonexistent, or negative[146] and in 2011 published his estimate that about 7.4% were based on "sound evidence", although he believes that may be an overestimate.[147] Ernst has concluded that 95% of the alternative treatments he and his team studied, including acupuncture, herbal medicine, homeopathy, and reflexology, are "statistically indistinguishable from placebo treatments", but he also believes there is something that conventional doctors can usefully learn from the chiropractors and homeopath: this is the therapeutic value of the placebo effect, one of the strangest phenomena in medicine.[148][149]

In 2003, a project funded by the CDC identified 208 condition-treatment pairs, of which 58% had been studied by at least one randomized controlled trial (RCT), and 23% had been assessed with a meta-analysis.[150] According to a 2005 book by a US Institute of Medicine panel, the number of RCTs focused on CAM has risen dramatically.

As of 2005[update], the Cochrane Library had 145 CAM-related Cochrane systematic reviews and 340 non-Cochrane systematic reviews. An analysis of the conclusions of only the 145 Cochrane reviews was done by two readers. In 83% of the cases, the readers agreed. In the 17% in which they disagreed, a third reader agreed with one of the initial readers to set a rating. These studies found that, for CAM, 38.4% concluded positive effect or possibly positive (12.4%), 4.8% concluded no effect, 0.7% concluded harmful effect, and 56.6% concluded insufficient evidence. An assessment of conventional treatments found that 41.3% concluded positive or possibly positive effect, 20% concluded no effect, 8.1% concluded net harmful effects, and 21.3% concluded insufficient evidence. However, the CAM review used the more developed 2004 Cochrane database, while the conventional review used the initial 1998 Cochrane database.

In the same way as for conventional therapies, drugs, and interventions, it can be difficult to test the efficacy of alternative medicine in clinical trials. In instances where an established, effective, treatment for a condition is already available, the Helsinki Declaration states that withholding such treatment is unethical in most circumstances. Use of standard-of-care treatment in addition to an alternative technique being tested may produce confounded or difficult-to-interpret results.[152]

Cancer researcher Andrew J. Vickers has stated:

Contrary to much popular and scientific writing, many alternative cancer treatments have been investigated in good-quality clinical trials, and they have been shown to be ineffective. The label "unproven" is inappropriate for such therapies; it is time to assert that many alternative cancer therapies have been "disproven".[153]

A research methods expert and author of Snake Oil Science, R. Barker Bausell, has stated that "it's become politically correct to investigate nonsense."[154] There are concerns that just having NIH support is being used to give unfounded "legitimacy to treatments that are not legitimate."[155]

Use of placebos to achieve a placebo effect in integrative medicine has been criticized as, "...diverting research time, money, and other resources from more fruitful lines of investigation in order to pursue a theory that has no basis in biology."[57][58]

Another critic has argued that academic proponents of integrative medicine sometimes recommend misleading patients by using known placebo treatments to achieve a placebo effect.[n 15] However, a 2010 survey of family physicians found that 56% of respondents said they had used a placebo in clinical practice as well. Eighty-five percent of respondents believed placebos can have both psychological and physical benefits.[157]

Integrative medicine has been criticized in that its practitioners, trained in science-based medicine, deliberately mislead patients by pretending placebos are not. "quackademic medicine" is a pejorative term used for integrative medicine, which medical professionals consider an infiltration of quackery into academic science-based medicine.[58]

An analysis of trends in the criticism of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in five prestigious American medical journals during the period of reorganization within medicine (19651999) was reported as showing that the medical profession had responded to the growth of CAM in three phases, and that in each phase, changes in the medical marketplace had influenced the type of response in the journals.[158] Changes included relaxed medical licensing, the development of managed care, rising consumerism, and the establishment of the USA Office of Alternative Medicine (later National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, currently National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health).[n 16] In the "condemnation" phase, from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, authors had ridiculed, exaggerated the risks, and petitioned the state to contain CAM; in the "reassessment" phase (mid-1970s through early 1990s), when increased consumer utilization of CAM was prompting concern, authors had pondered whether patient dissatisfaction and shortcomings in conventional care contributed to the trend; in the "integration" phase of the 1990s physicians began learning to work around or administer CAM, and the subjugation of CAM to scientific scrutiny had become the primary means of control.[citation needed]

Practitioners of complementary medicine usually discuss and advise patients as to available alternative therapies. Patients often express interest in mind-body complementary therapies because they offer a non-drug approach to treating some health conditions.[160]

In addition to the social-cultural underpinnings of the popularity of alternative medicine, there are several psychological issues that are critical to its growth, notably psychological effects, such as the will to believe,[161] cognitive biases that help maintain self-esteem and promote harmonious social functioning,[161] and the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.[161]

The popularity of complementary & alternative medicine (CAM) may be related to other factors that Edzard Ernst mentioned in an interview in The Independent:

Why is it so popular, then? Ernst blames the providers, customers and the doctors whose neglect, he says, has created the opening into which alternative therapists have stepped. "People are told lies. There are 40 million websites and 39.9 million tell lies, sometimes outrageous lies. They mislead cancer patients, who are encouraged not only to pay their last penny but to be treated with something that shortens their lives. "At the same time, people are gullible. It needs gullibility for the industry to succeed. It doesn't make me popular with the public, but it's the truth.[162]

Paul Offit proposed that "alternative medicine becomes quackery" in four ways: by recommending against conventional therapies that are helpful, promoting potentially harmful therapies without adequate warning, draining patients' bank accounts, or by promoting "magical thinking."[45]

Authors have speculated on the socio-cultural and psychological reasons for the appeal of alternative medicines among the minority using them in lieu of conventional medicine. There are several socio-cultural reasons for the interest in these treatments centered on the low level of scientific literacy among the public at large and a concomitant increase in antiscientific attitudes and new age mysticism.[161] Related to this are vigorous marketing[163] of extravagant claims by the alternative medical community combined with inadequate media scrutiny and attacks on critics.[161][164]

There is also an increase in conspiracy theories toward conventional medicine and pharmaceutical companies, mistrust of traditional authority figures, such as the physician, and a dislike of the current delivery methods of scientific biomedicine, all of which have led patients to seek out alternative medicine to treat a variety of ailments.[164] Many patients lack access to contemporary medicine, due to a lack of private or public health insurance, which leads them to seek out lower-cost alternative medicine.[165] Medical doctors are also aggressively marketing alternative medicine to profit from this market.[163]

Patients can be averse to the painful, unpleasant, and sometimes-dangerous side effects of biomedical treatments. Treatments for severe diseases such as cancer and HIV infection have well-known, significant side-effects. Even low-risk medications such as antibiotics can have potential to cause life-threatening anaphylactic reactions in a very few individuals. Many medications may cause minor but bothersome symptoms such as cough or upset stomach. In all of these cases, patients may be seeking out alternative treatments to avoid the adverse effects of conventional treatments.[161][164]

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has been described as a broad domain of healing resources that encompasses all health systems, modalities, and practices and their accompanying theories and beliefs, other than those intrinsic to the politically dominant health system of a particular society or culture in a given historical period. CAM includes all such practices and ideas self-defined by their users as preventing or treating illness or promoting health and well-being. Boundaries within CAM and between the CAM domain and that of the dominant system are not always sharp or fixed.[72][dubious discuss]

According to recent research, the increasing popularity of the CAM needs to be explained by moral convictions or lifestyle choices rather than by economic reasoning.[166]

In developing nations, access to essential medicines is severely restricted by lack of resources and poverty. Traditional remedies, often closely resembling or forming the basis for alternative remedies, may comprise primary healthcare or be integrated into the healthcare system. In Africa, traditional medicine is used for 80% of primary healthcare, and in developing nations as a whole over one-third of the population lack access to essential medicines.[167]

Some have proposed adopting a prize system to reward medical research.[168] However, public funding for research exists. Increasing the funding for research on alternative medicine techniques is the purpose of the US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. NCCIH and its predecessor, the Office of Alternative Medicine, have spent more than US$2.5 billion on such research since 1992; this research has largely not demonstrated the efficacy of alternative treatments.[154][169][170][171]

That alternative medicine has been on the rise "in countries where Western science and scientific method generally are accepted as the major foundations for healthcare, and 'evidence-based' practice is the dominant paradigm" was described as an "enigma" in the Medical Journal of Australia.[172]

In the United States, the 1974 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) required that for states to receive federal money, they had to grant religious exemptions to child neglect and abuse laws regarding religion-based healing practices.[173] Thirty-one states have child-abuse religious exemptions.[174]

The use of alternative medicine in the US has increased,[1][175] with a 50 percent increase in expenditures and a 25 percent increase in the use of alternative therapies between 1990 and 1997 in America.[175] Americans spend many billions on the therapies annually.[175] Most Americans used CAM to treat and/or prevent musculoskeletal conditions or other conditions associated with chronic or recurring pain.[165] In America, women were more likely than men to use CAM, with the biggest difference in use of mind-body therapies including prayer specifically for health reasons".[165] In 2008, more than 37% of American hospitals offered alternative therapies, up from 27 percent in 2005, and 25% in 2004.[176][177] More than 70% of the hospitals offering CAM were in urban areas.[177]

A survey of Americans found that 88 percent thought that "there are some good ways of treating sickness that medical science does not recognize".[1] Use of magnets was the most common tool in energy medicine in America, and among users of it, 58 percent described it as at least "sort of scientific", when it is not at all scientific.[1] In 2002, at least 60 percent of US medical schools have at least some class time spent teaching alternative therapies.[1] "Therapeutic touch" was taught at more than 100 colleges and universities in 75 countries before the practice was debunked by a nine-year-old child for a school science project.[1][114]

The most common CAM therapies used in the US in 2002 were prayer (45%), herbalism (19%), breathing meditation (12%), meditation (8%), chiropractic medicine (8%), yoga (56%), body work (5%), diet-based therapy (4%), progressive relaxation (3%), mega-vitamin therapy (3%) and Visualization (2%)[165][178]

In Britain, the most often used alternative therapies were Alexander technique, Aromatherapy, Bach and other flower remedies, Body work therapies including massage, Counseling stress therapies, hypnotherapy, Meditation, Reflexology, Shiatsu, Ayurvedic medicine, Nutritional medicine, and Yoga.[179] Ayurvedic medicine remedies are mainly plant based with some use of animal materials. Safety concerns include the use of herbs containing toxic compounds and the lack of quality control in Ayurvedic facilities.[108][110]

According to the National Health Service (England), the most commonly used complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) supported by the NHS in the UK are: acupuncture, aromatherapy, chiropractic, homeopathy, massage, osteopathy and clinical hypnotherapy.[181]

Complementary therapies are often used in palliative care or by practitioners attempting to manage chronic pain in patients. Integrative medicine is considered more acceptable in the interdisciplinary approach used in palliative care than in other areas of medicine. "From its early experiences of care for the dying, palliative care took for granted the necessity of placing patient values and lifestyle habits at the core of any design and delivery of quality care at the end of life. If the patient desired complementary therapies, and as long as such treatments provided additional support and did not endanger the patient, they were considered acceptable."[182] The non-pharmacologic interventions of complementary medicine can employ mind-body interventions designed to "reduce pain and concomitant mood disturbance and increase quality of life."[183]

In Austria and Germany complementary and alternative medicine is mainly in the hands of doctors with MDs,[30] and half or more of the American alternative practitioners are licensed MDs.[184] In Germany herbs are tightly regulated: half are prescribed by doctors and covered by health insurance.[185]

Some professions of complementary/traditional/alternative medicine, such as chiropractic, have achieved full regulation in North America and other parts of the world and are regulated in a manner similar to that governing science-based medicine. In contrast, other approaches may be partially recognized and others have no regulation at all. Regulation and licensing of alternative medicine ranges widely from country to country, and state to state.

Government bodies in the US and elsewhere have published information or guidance about alternative medicine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has issued online warnings for consumers about medication health fraud.[187] This includes a section on Alternative Medicine Fraud,[188] such as a warning that Ayurvedic products generally have not been approved by the FDA before marketing.[189]

Many of the claims regarding the safety and efficacy of alternative medicine are controversial. Some alternative treatments have been associated with unexpected side effects, which can be fatal.[190]

A commonly voiced concerns about complementary alternative medicine (CAM) is the way it's regulated. There have been significant developments in how CAMs should be assessed prior to re-sale in the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) in the last 2 years. Despite this, it has been suggested that current regulatory bodies have been ineffective in preventing deception of patients as many companies have re-labelled their drugs to avoid the new laws.[191] There is no general consensus about how to balance consumer protection (from false claims, toxicity, and advertising) with freedom to choose remedies.

Advocates of CAM suggest that regulation of the industry will adversely affect patients looking for alternative ways to manage their symptoms, even if many of the benefits may represent the placebo affect.[192] Some contend that alternative medicines should not require any more regulation than over-the-counter medicines that can also be toxic in overdose (such as paracetamol).[193]

Forms of alternative medicine that are biologically active can be dangerous even when used in conjunction with conventional medicine. Examples include immuno-augmentation therapy, shark cartilage, bioresonance therapy, oxygen and ozone therapies, and insulin potentiation therapy. Some herbal remedies can cause dangerous interactions with chemotherapy drugs, radiation therapy, or anesthetics during surgery, among other problems.[31] An example of these dangers was reported by Associate Professor Alastair MacLennan of Adelaide University, Australia regarding a patient who almost bled to death on the operating table after neglecting to mention that she had been taking "natural" potions to "build up her strength" before the operation, including a powerful anticoagulant that nearly caused her death.[194]

To ABC Online, MacLennan also gives another possible mechanism:

And lastly there's the cynicism and disappointment and depression that some patients get from going on from one alternative medicine to the next, and they find after three months the placebo effect wears off, and they're disappointed and they move on to the next one, and they're disappointed and disillusioned, and that can create depression and make the eventual treatment of the patient with anything effective difficult, because you may not get compliance, because they've seen the failure so often in the past.[195]

Conventional treatments are subjected to testing for undesired side-effects, whereas alternative treatments, in general, are not subjected to such testing at all. Any treatment whether conventional or alternative that has a biological or psychological effect on a patient may also have potential to possess dangerous biological or psychological side-effects. Attempts to refute this fact with regard to alternative treatments sometimes use the appeal to nature fallacy, i.e., "That which is natural cannot be harmful." Specific groups of patients such as patients with impaired hepatic or renal function are more susceptible to side effects of alternative remedies.[196][197]

An exception to the normal thinking regarding side-effects is Homeopathy. Since 1938, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has regulated homeopathic products in "several significantly different ways from other drugs."[198] Homeopathic preparations, termed "remedies", are extremely dilute, often far beyond the point where a single molecule of the original active (and possibly toxic) ingredient is likely to remain. They are, thus, considered safe on that count, but "their products are exempt from good manufacturing practice requirements related to expiration dating and from finished product testing for identity and strength", and their alcohol concentration may be much higher than allowed in conventional drugs.[198]

Those having experienced or perceived success with one alternative therapy for a minor ailment may be convinced of its efficacy and persuaded to extrapolate that success to some other alternative therapy for a more serious, possibly life-threatening illness.[199] For this reason, critics argue that therapies that rely on the placebo effect to define success are very dangerous. According to mental health journalist Scott Lilienfeld in 2002, "unvalidated or scientifically unsupported mental health practices can lead individuals to forgo effective treatments" and refers to this as "opportunity cost". Individuals who spend large amounts of time and money on ineffective treatments may be left with precious little of either, and may forfeit the opportunity to obtain treatments that could be more helpful. In short, even innocuous treatments can indirectly produce negative outcomes.[200] Between 2001 and 2003, four children died in Australia because their parents chose ineffective naturopathic, homeopathic, or other alternative medicines and diets rather than conventional therapies.[201]

There have always been "many therapies offered outside of conventional cancer treatment centers and based on theories not found in biomedicine. These alternative cancer cures have often been described as 'unproven,' suggesting that appropriate clinical trials have not been conducted and that the therapeutic value of the treatment is unknown." However, "many alternative cancer treatments have been investigated in good-quality clinical trials, and they have been shown to be ineffective....The label 'unproven' is inappropriate for such therapies; it is time to assert that many alternative cancer therapies have been 'disproven'."[153]

Edzard Ernst has stated:

any alternative cancer cure is bogus by definition. There will never be an alternative cancer cure. Why? Because if something looked halfway promising, then mainstream oncology would scrutinize it, and if there is anything to it, it would become mainstream almost automatically and very quickly. All curative "alternative cancer cures" are based on false claims, are bogus, and, I would say, even criminal.[202]

"CAM", meaning "complementary and alternative medicine", is not as well researched as conventional medicine, which undergoes intense research before release to the public.[203] Funding for research is also sparse making it difficult to do further research for effectiveness of CAM.[204] Most funding for CAM is funded by government agencies.[203] Proposed research for CAM are rejected by most private funding agencies because the results of research are not reliable.[203] The research for CAM has to meet certain standards from research ethics committees, which most CAM researchers find almost impossible to meet.[203] Even with the little research done on it, CAM has not been proven to be effective.[205]

Steven Novella, a neurologist at Yale School of Medicine, wrote that government funded studies of integrating alternative medicine techniques into the mainstream are "used to lend an appearance of legitimacy to treatments that are not legitimate."[155] Marcia Angell considered that critics felt that healthcare practices should be classified based solely on scientific evidence, and if a treatment had been rigorously tested and found safe and effective, science-based medicine will adopt it regardless of whether it was considered "alternative" to begin with.[3] It is possible for a method to change categories (proven vs. unproven), based on increased knowledge of its effectiveness or lack thereof. A prominent supporter of this position is George D. Lundberg, former editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).[47]

Writing in 1999 in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians Barrie R. Cassileth mentioned a 1997 letter to the US Senate Subcommittee on Public Health and Safety, which had deplored the lack of critical thinking and scientific rigor in OAM-supported research, had been signed by four Nobel Laureates and other prominent scientists. (This was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).)[206]

In March 2009 a staff writer for the Washington Post reported that the impending national discussion about broadening access to health care, improving medical practice and saving money was giving a group of scientists an opening to propose shutting down the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. They quoted one of these scientists, Steven Salzberg, a genome researcher and computational biologist at the University of Maryland, as saying "One of our concerns is that NIH is funding pseudoscience." They noted that the vast majority of studies were based on fundamental misunderstandings of physiology and disease, and had shown little or no effect.[155]

Writers such as Carl Sagan, a noted astrophysicist, advocate of scientific skepticism and the author of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1996), have lambasted the lack of empirical evidence to support the existence of the putative energy fields on which these therapies are predicated.

Sampson has also pointed out that CAM tolerated contradiction without thorough reason and experiment.[207] Barrett has pointed out that there is a policy at the NIH of never saying something doesn't work only that a different version or dose might give different results.[154] Barrett also expressed concern that, just because some "alternatives" have merit, there is the impression that the rest deserve equal consideration and respect even though most are worthless, since they are all classified under the one heading of alternative medicine.[208]

Originally posted here:
Alternative medicine - Wikipedia

Every year, millions of people see a health care professional for symptoms that diagnostic tests can't explain. In many of these patients, the cause of the illness is stress, particularly stress that isn't fully recognized. Managing stress is all about taking charge of your thoughts, emotions, and the way you deal with problems.

Integrative Medicine is an approach to medical care focusing on the whole person and recognizing the interactions of mind, body and spirit to optimize health and healing.

Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to be present; inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intention to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and right now.- Jon Kabat-Zinn

To make integrative medicine accessible to patients, physicians and residents of the greater Palm Beaches, Jupiter Medical Center opened a new center for mindfulness to address yet another facet of the communitys health and wellness. The soul purpose of our Calcagnini Center for Mindfulness is to help people heal through the integrative medicine techniques of mindfulness.

The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Read more:
Integrative Medicine | Jupiter Medical Center

The services provided by the UAB Integrative Medicine Clinic are delivered by a diverse group of clinical, behavioral, and other professionals, including a hematologist/oncologist trained at the prestigious Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. The teams psychologist has extensive expertise in treating patients suffering from physical illness and disability, bereavement, depression, and trauma-related issues. The psychologist incorporates meditation and mindfulness techniques designed to enhance well-being into the patients comprehensive care plan.

A Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT), certified by the Yoga Alliance, offers mindful, breath-centered yoga for fostering body awareness, building strength, and finding ease and balance. Programs include Yoga of Awareness for Chronic Pain, Mindful Yoga for Cancer, and Therapeutic Yoga for Seniors.

Specialists trained in art, dance, and music from the UAB Arts in Medicine program work hand in hand with the Integrative Medicine Clinic by offering visual arts and guided meditation, dance and movement activities, storytelling and movement sessions, Zentangle Method drawing instruction, and The Joy of Singing.

UABs Pastoral Care team provides spiritual support, compassionate listening, companionship, and guidance to help meet each patients practical, emotional, and spiritual needs while tapping into their most cherished sources of meaning, power, and hope.

Your first visit to the UAB Integrative Medicine Clinic will last one hour and will include one or more of the services previously described. Other clinic services include:

Original post:
Integrative Medicine - UAB Medicine

Integrative Medicine is a patient-centered, evidence-informed field of cancer care that utilizes mind and body practices, acupuncture, therapeutic massage, therapeutic yoga, natural productsand lifestyle modifications, together with conventional cancer treatments.

While medical treatments focus on fighting the disease, Integrative Medicine, in collaboration with our other medical support services, can help you cope with treatment side effects and enhance your wellness and quality of life. Integrative Medicine providers at SCCA will work closely with your care team.

At Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA), we believe state-of-the-art care includes support for the healing of our patients in body, mindand spirit.

Integrative Medicine therapies and practices can be empowering, therapeutic tools to help relieve cancer- and treatment-related side effects and improve overall wellness and quality of life during any stage of treatment and survivorship.What is included in an SCCA Integrative Medicine visit?

During your first appointment, your Integrative Medicine provider will take a thorough history about your health and lifestyle. Together, you will discuss your health and wellness goals and work with you to design an individualized plan to help you achieve them.

SCCA Integrative Medicine is available to all patients receiving care at the SCCA South Lake Union clinic. Let your care team know you are interested in seeing an Integrative Medicine provider or you may self-refer by calling (206) 606-5500or emailing integrativemedTC@seattlecca.org. The scheduling team will provide instructions on where to arrive and how to check-in.

Some, but not all, insurance plans will cover integrative medicine services. View here for more information. If you have additional questions, contact an SCCA financial counselor at (206) 606-6226.

Kathleen Sanders, ARNP-BC, MPH, completed a fellowship in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. She is a member of the Society for Integrative Oncology and the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health. She is passionate about empowering patients to achieve their optimal health and improve their quality of life through integrative medicine.

Additional services will be available at SCCA South Lake Union in summer 2018, including an acupuncturist, massage/yoga therapist and naturopathic physician.

View post:
Integrative Medicine | Seattle Cancer Care Alliance

At JBT, we are committed to an integrative approach that supports all aspects of your health and wellness, including mental, emotional, physical, social, spiritual, intellectual, environmental, and other components. We have a staff of psychologists and a psychiatrist who work closely with our primary care group, and one of our primary care providers has completed the University of Arizona's Integrative Medicine Fellowship. We also offer acupuncture and (coming soon!) massage services, mindfulness classes, and are growing our other wellness offerings.

Integrative medicine is the practice of medicine, informed by evidence, which takes account of the whole person. It addresses physical, emotional, mental, social, and environmental influences on health and makes use of all appropriate therapies and disciplines to achieve optimal health.

Acupuncture is an important component of Traditional Chinese Medicine that continues to be a topic of modern clinical research and practice. It involves the insertion of extremely thin, sterile needles at specific points along the body. In the United States, acupuncture has most commonly been used in the treatment of various kinds of musculoskeletal pain. Both the National Institute of Health and the World Health Organization recommend the use of acupuncture for many conditions.

At JBT, acupuncture services are available to help you manage stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia, pain, digestive disorders, headaches, gynecological concerns, and many other health issues. Our acupuncture services are integrated into our primary care department so that each patient receives the best of both Allopathic/Western Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine. We welcome you to come and see how you can make acupuncture an important part of your healthy lifestyle.

How to schedule: A referral is needed from a JBT primary care or behavioral health provider. If you are already an established patient with JBT you can call or MyChart your clinician with a referral request. If you are not established, call JBT to schedule an office visit with one of our primary care clinicians.

Cost:Freewith the Pacific Source Student Health Insurance Plan. If you have outside insurance, you have two options: 1) We can bill your insurance,which may or may not cover all or part of your visit. You would be responsible for any copays or deductibles. When a JBT provider makes an acupuncture referral, it is processed through managed care to determine if your insurance covers acupuncture. OR, 2) You can opt to self-pay at the discounted rate of $35 per visit.

We offeravarietyofmindfulness and meditation workshops and series to introduce these topicsaswellasexplore them in-depth.

We all know how to take our bodies on a vacation, but do we know how to give our minds a break? The essence of meditation is relaxation. In the workshops, we will practice how to unwind and letour minds settle into a relaxed but focused state. Each session will focus on simple and easy techniques to calm the mind and relax the body. The pressures of school and work can seem overwhelming, but learning how to relax in a mindful way can help us let go of the stress and work more effectively in our daily lives.

When: Look on ourhomepage for current drop-in sessions.

Cost: Free

See original here:
Integrative Medicine | Joseph B. Trainer Health & Wellness ...

SAVE THE DATE!

Section of Integrative Medicine and Health is pleased to announce Updates in Integrative Medicine and Health2019 planning is underway! Please select 'Sign up for alerts" on the right side to be notified when registration opens.

COURSE DESCRIPTON

The explosive growth of Integrative Medicine has brought both opportunities and challenges to patients and consumers. Patients are confronted with a bewildering and growing array of promises and claims. This presents a unique challenge to physicians and other health care professionals tasked with helping their patients make informed health care decisions. Researchers and clinicians from Mayo Clinic offer this course to provide learners with a general working knowledge of Integrative Medicine; familiarity with some of the most common therapies; and most importantly, practical application of these therapies to patients with relevant diseases and conditions.

INTENDED AUDIENCE

This course is designed for practicing physicians, residents, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses and other members of the health care team who work with patients using or interested in using integrative medicine therapies.

Original post:
Updates in Integrative Medicine and Health 2019 | Integrative ...